NATO's Future

The NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 created a precedent for the War in Afghanistan, which created a precedent for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. NATO is a defensive alliance. Its member nations were not under attack by either Yugoslavia or Afghanistan. But in both cases a rationale was pieced together. The underlying imperative was captured by the slogan "Out of area or out of business."

That imperative remains intact a decade later despite significant reductions in military spending by European countries, as reported today by Steven Erlanger in his story, "Shrinking European Military Spending Stirs Concern":

The challenge is particularly acute as NATO pulls its forces out of Afghanistan after a long, wearying and unsatisfying war, with results widely seen as fragile, even unsustainable. After Afghanistan, with Europeans looking inward and the Russian threat considered more rhetorical than real, some wonder once more about the real utility of NATO. 

James M. Goldgeier, dean of the School of International Service at American University in Washington, thinks that NATO has some considerable soul-searching ahead if its European members become increasingly unwilling to operate abroad.

“If NATO isn’t outward looking, it’s got nothing to do,” he said. “It can’t go back to managing a threat from Russia, because it’s not a real threat.”

The U.S. picks up three-quarters of NATO's tab. The EU's aspiration for a common defense force, eurocorps, has been a bust. Germany, the chief economic power of the EU, has been actively opposed to out-of-area actions in Libya and Mali. The United States will need at least nominal European support for its "Pivot to Asia."